i think we both know that the particular 13 year old mention in this article is rare

I think most of the commentaries have overlooked the fact that the people who fondly remember typing in programs from the back pages of magazines are themselves extreme outliers, and only become more so with the passage of time. Many more programmers today get their start playing around with web technologies, for example, or through simply deciding to take some classes in college and learn how to do stuff.